What Powerful Hollywood Women Really Want (Besides an Oscar)

LOS ANGELES — The campaigning starts in the summer with lunch invitations and not so subtle phone calls. In the fall, corporate publicists send elaborate dossiers that lay out the wonderfulness of their bosses. By the end, sometimes flat-out begging and pleading occur.

Forget the Oscars. One of the most fearsome competitions in show business involves landing in the right spot on The Hollywood Reporter’s annual ranking of the 100 most powerful women in entertainment. For certain executives, agents and producers, this has become a blood sport.

“I can’t tell you the number of publicists who insist their jobs are on the line,” said Janice Min, who oversees the Power 100 list as The Hollywood Reporter’s chief creative officer, its top editor. “It’s a little surreal.”

This year, according to Ms. Min, three of the top five slots changed, following the departure of Anne Sweeney as co-chairwoman of Disney Media Networks, who was No. 1 for eight of the last 10 years. The new reigning queen: Bonnie Hammer, chairwoman of NBCUniversal Cable. The Reporter will make the entire list public on Wednesday morning, timed to coincide with a breakfast that borders on a gala.

But who populates this list, and where they land on it, are almost beside the point. The Reporter’s Power 100 — and the accompanying clamor — are probably more interesting for what they say about the culture of Hollywood. Even among accomplished business executives, it can be an insecure, look-at-me place. And there are still so few women in leadership positions that its leading trade publication feels the need to single them out.

“More than probably any other industry, ranking is everything here,” Ms. Min said. “It’s an extension of being judged by your box office position and last night’s ratings.”

The list also reflects some significant shifts. A few years ago, Amy Pascal, Sony’s movie chief, topped the rankings. But on Wednesday, she will be given fourth place, behind three television executives: Ms. Hammer; the second-place Dana Walden, the chairwoman of the Fox Television Group; and Nancy Dubuc, chief executive of A&E Networks.

It’s not that Ms. Pascal wields less influence. But television has eclipsed movies as a business, at least in terms of sheer profitability and global footprint, two factors that the editors say affect the rankings. (Donna Langley, the chairwoman of Universal Pictures, ranks fifth this year.)

The reason is simple: Readers pore over the standings, which is good for advertising sales. Lists also give magazines clout with sources: During the 1990s, climbing the power rankings in Premiere magazine was such a Hollywood obsession that studio moguls famously lavished attention on the publication (at least until its demise, in 2007).

The plethora of lists and their predictableness have made many of them lose their impact, but competition around The Hollywood Reporter’s annual women’s list, started in 1992, has only grown — partly because of Ms. Min. Taking over in 2010, she dramatically raised the magazine’s profile, beefing up the reporting for the rankings in the process.

“Let’s be real, there was a time before I got here when there was consideration given to studios” that were major advertisers, Ms. Min said. “That would never happen now — never, never, never, never.”

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This year the list is topped by Bonnie Hammer, of NBCUniversal Cable.

That does not mean that squadrons of public relations operatives don’t try to exert influence. The Reporter’s senior editors, for instance, are well versed in Ms. Hammer’s many responsibilities. An NBCUniversal communications executive, Cory Shields, along with an independent publicist, Simon Halls, last year visited The Reporter’s offices to press for Ms. Hammer, complete with PowerPoint slides.

Kevin Brockman, executive vice president for media relations for the Disney/ABC Television Group, has for years sent pages of facts about the size of Ms. Sweeney’s empire, sometimes even counting Twitter and Facebook followers for Disney shows. Ms. Walden and Ms. Dubuc are similarly supported by boundless bullet points.

“I know people probably think it’s silly, but these lists have value,” said Joe Quenqua, who runs the entertainment practice at DKC Public Relations. “You’re not just positioning the person, you are angling to elevate a business or a division.”

Publicists emphasize that they push just as hard for male executives to make lists that matter.

The hubbub around The Reporter’s women’s list strikes some people in Hollywood as distasteful because it can be viewed as pitting women against one another and as undermining how far female executives have come in an industry that remains very much controlled by men. Even some of the women who populate the list see it as overtly sexist.

“Being ghettoized as some sort of special-needs group is not helpful to me,” said one female executive, who would speak only on the condition of anonymity because she did not want to anger Ms. Min. (Now that’s power — although Ms. Min herself does not appear on the list.)

Ms. Min responded, “It has not been an easy road for women in Hollywood, and it continues to not be easy, and that’s partly why we feel strongly about recognizing women as important players.”

The Reporter takes the compilation seriously. Matthew Belloni, its executive editor, said senior staff members hold about eight meetings to debate and decide the order, with an emphasis put on numbers: How many employees do they oversee? What were their box office results?

At one such session in November, held in The Reporter’s conference room, Lacey Rose, the television editor, ardently argued for a TV executive to move higher on the list. “In terms of her clout in this town right now?” Ms. Rose said. “Massive.”

Mr. Belloni countered: “But what about the financials? How big is her empire? How much money does it make?”

Figuring out exact profitability turned out to be tricky; the company in question did not make that information public.

Ms. Min weighed in: “If you are Ari Emanuel” — the co-chief executive of William Morris Endeavor — “whose call do you return before hers?”

The Reporter waits until its annual Women in Entertainment breakfast — sponsored by the likes ofAudi, Samsung and Gucci — to make the list public. That way, nobody is miffed going in. But staff members at the magazine say that attendees inevitably can be spotted ducking behind potted palms to read their entries; one year, one burst into tears.

“Nobody has ever, at least to my face, said how disappointed or angry they are,” Ms. Min said. “I think it’s because the second that breakfast is over, they are calculating next year’s rankings.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: What Powerful Hollywood Women Really Want (Besides an Oscar). Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe